(b Vidin, 31 Mar. 1885; d Paris, c.2 June 1930). Bulgarian-born painter and draughtsman. He led a wandering life, and although he acquired American citizenship when he moved to New York during the First World War, he is chiefly associated with Paris, where he belonged to the circle of émigré artists who gravitated around Chagall, Modigliani, and Soutine. His work includes portraits of his friends, café scenes, and flower pieces, as well as a few large paintings with biblical themes, but the bulk of his output consists of erotically charged studies of nude (or very flimsily dressed) teenage girls.

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They have been compared to the work of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, but Pascin's paintings are less penetrating and more obviously posed. He can be rather repetitive, but his best art has great delicacy of colour and handling and a poignant sense of lost innocence. Pascin's art brought him financial success, but he led a dissolute life and was emotionally unstable: just as a major exhibition of his art was about to open at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, he committed suicide in his studio (slashing his wrists and then hanging himself).

Text Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press)